P5 Rollout!

This week I'm working as a co-facilitator to the new P5 curriculum roll out to the P5 teachers.  The workshop roll out I'm assigned to is in Jinja town.  I'm expected to be there early, which means I wake up before the sun does...bathing outside is difficult, and for me, out of the question (I like to know what's crawling around me while I'm soapy and naked).  I've found that this has disorganized my morning a bit, but nonetheless, I'm at the primary school on time, even if the participants aren't.  

The first session I facilitated was about teaching learners with special needs.  I had the weekend to prepare: I drew charts, I did cross-reference online, I thought about special needs in the context of Uganda and I wrote a very detailed, time-bound lesson plan.  Throughout my lesson, I heard the birds outside, the chickens pecking away and the wind blow.  The P5 teachers, however, didn't say much.  I couldn't tell if they were more confused, overwhelmed, or focused on copying down everything I had written out that I told them not to bother to copy.  Either way, not much of a response. 

Today--I had prepared an interactive lesson, modeling "stations" with several different "learner-centered" P5 activities to teach about what "learner-centered" can look like in a classroom.  It was really fun to see the teachers getting into the activities!  I heard less of the wildlife outside and more of the teacher interactions inside.  For a math station, I had them try to juggle a ball on their knees, and count how many consecutive juggles they could achieve.  At a health station, they were discovering how it feels to move through a room while being completely visually impaired.  I had a lot of fun watching them, and I hope they took some ideas from it.  Some criticisms I received from a co-facilitator was that they may take this one strategy, stations, to mean learner-centered activities as a whole, and assume that only stations are learner-centered.  Additionally, because I showcased cross-subject stations, I modeled more of what a thematic classroom could look like, but not within one subject.  I'm hoping that between tomorrow and Thursday, their application of learner centered activities in their sample lessons will show that they think beyond just stations as learner-centered.  

In other news, I'm determined to learn new Lusoga words everyday (and names).  

Names: Steven and Nicholas are building my kitchen table, Shalwa is the very helpful P5 neighbor girl, Nasairye is another helpful neighbor child, Musa is Nasairye's ADORABLE younger brother, Hamina is a friend of Shalwa and Ashley is a man who works at a cell phone duuka that is located near where the cheaper Wanyange/Wairaka taxi parks in Jinja.

Words:  Mudala is stairs.  When I'm going back home from Jinja, I say, "Conductor, ngya ku Jinja PTC mu Wanyanga ku mudala," which ensures I get dropped off at the stairs, not the boda stage.  

More words tomorrow!